Blog #14. TV SHOWS OF INTEREST TO GARDENERS

TV progammes of interest to gardeners.
My Blog #4 where I provide details of garden theme TV shows, and #5 for the TV wildlife shows, have both become rather lengthy, so here is a new blog to run through 2009.

If you make a comment on this blog, then when I add details of any new TV gardening shows etc. you will automatically see it.

I’m happy to highlight the gardening/wildlife shows for everyone.
But it’s easy to miss adverts for forthcoming programmes, so I hope other members will mention here any future shows I’ve not noticed ! Thanks.

Comments

That sounds a very interesting programme, TT - I've just read the write-up in the TV paper. Unfortunately I can't get BB4 but sometimes they are repeated later on the normal channels. Love the picture of Truffle - hope I don't get bumble bees as big as that in my garden! :)

Hi Grenville & Alan ~
Yes, you're right. One programme is immediately after the other.
8pm ~ 8.30 pm and 8.30 pm ~ 9 pm.
The garden 'rooms' sound good !
Truffle is fitting in well thanks.
Conker is being very good in accepting him.
love from TT xxx

It is fascinating to see how tensions can develop when trying to maintain the garden as a prominent National Trust visitor attraction, and also attempt to keep the historic
'soul and character' of the entire site, and the work of Vita Sackville - West and Harold Nicholson the original creators.

I felt that more could have been done on the programme to consult the views of the paying public with regards to the proposals for major changes and improvements, as the visitors now help to preserve and maintain the house and the gardens when they pay their admission fees.

It must also be very difficult for those who still own and live in historic properties and gardens and they have to open their doors to the public in order to ensure they remain viable for the future.

The BBC4 programmes are often repeated so I guess those wishing to see the Sissinghurst series will get other opportunities.

Hello Hywel ~ What a pity you also can't get BBC4.

I'm happy to highlight the gardening/wildlife shows for everyone. But it's easy to miss adverts for forthcoming programmes, so I hope other members will mention here any future shows I've not noticed ! Thanks.

Grenville ~ Yes, I agree, it would have been interesting to hear views from the paying public. Maybe that information will materialise in later shows on the series. It must be wonderful to live in a large stately home with beautiful gardens, but also a great responsibility.

BBC4 has another interesting show coming up on Thursday 26th Feb. 09. Please see blog text above.

Just watched the sissinghurst programme, enjoyed it very much, i must admit though got a bit annoyed with Adams wife!! the paying public were obviously very happy with the restaurant and she wanted to change so much about it, why change what works so well it brings in £50,000 a year!!!
The gardens are lovely wish they'd shown a bit more of them, what a fascinating family to come from extraordinary woman Vita wasn't she? Am going to do a bit of surfing to find out more thanks TT for the reminder

Thanks TT. I'm looking forward to Gardener's world, esp the one on small spaces.
I'll have to make sure I have the correct times. In Wales they tend to postpone things to show rugby matches instead. They then put them at such stupid times like 4. 20 on a tuesday afternoon and daft times like that. I'll have to check.
Hope truffle is misbehaving well. :o)

Hello Hywel ~
Yes, I realise it's annoying for you that the BBC shows in Wales are often shown at different times to other parts of the UK.
I hope they're on at a time when you can watch them.
I gather the small spaces gardening includes climbers.

I tend to record them TT, but I'll have to check I have the correct times.
I like climbers. I hope to have more this yr. I boughr 2 clematis and a Passion flower this week in Wyevale Carmarthen - any 3 climbers for £8. - I also have 5 clematis in pots from the old garden to plant now and also 3 I bought last autumn. lol

Yes, I also like climbers. My photos prove that fact. Lol.
Three climbers for £8 is very good !

I have passion flower seedlings growing all over my house. Lol. Trouble is, all grown from a fruit given by a friend, so I've no real idea what I'm growing. Lol. Some are heading up towards the ceiling. :o)

No, Sid. You didn't miss it.
As far as I recall their projects are proving so interesting that they could end up with a much longer slot later this year.
Who knows ~ maybe even a whole show devoted entirely to Four Seasons. :o)

Hi all! I tell you what, I'm really hoping that BBC do another series of Wildlife gardening. I loved watching the 6 programmes and miss not having it to watch on sunday afternoons! Sob!!!

Did anyone else see those programmes and do they have any comments about it? My only gripe is that they appear to have spent thousands on the 6 gardens they did. That is totally unrealistic for most of us, and just made my jaw drop on all the plants that were bought etc. The other thing is, not much time was spent on plants or wildlife. I would like to have seen which plants attracted which wildlife for instance and learning a bit more about that. Instead, I felt I was watching one of those stressful "makeover" programmes, where you sit in agony, thinking, will they or won't they get it all done in time!

A reminder that the Sissinghurst series continues tomorrow, Sunday 1st March,09, on BBC 4. 8.00pm - 9.00pm.
Includes report on the large rabbit population on the estate.

On BBC3 same evening 7.40 pm - 9.00 pm ~
Wallace and Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

This has a gardening/rabbit theme, so rather amusing that it clashes with Sissinghurst on BBC4.

The Wallace and Gromit evening is repeated on BBC3 on Wednesday 4th March.09. As yet, I've found no repeats of the Sissinghurst shows.

Another show of interest ~
Friday 6th March 09. 8.00pm - 8.50 pm BBC2.
Natural World ~ documentary showing the wildlife which thrived when the Iron Curtain resulted in a demilitarised no-man's land dividing East from West, from Baltic to Adriatic ~ bears, eagles, cranes, lynx, meadow flowers and butterflies...... and the fat-belled bush cricket !

Sorry, I meant to say a huge "Hi Truffle", above. You are truly scrumptious, hehe!

We love Wallace and Gromit and, yes, there are many gorgeous veggies in this one! I have just one wee problem - I don't have a TV! Haven't watched much in years, always too busy, and the children haven't even noticed yet! We're too busy with seed-sowing, garden construction, etc. But will get one, just to see some of these fab programmes you so kindly inform us of (but especially the Carol Klein ones !) - :-) X

hi David
there is a Wall and Grom exhibition at the Science Museum from Sat 28th March to 1st November 2009

Central unit: the making of Wallace and Gromit, The Curse of the Were-rabbit

The exhibition features Aardman Animations and the exhibitions central unit tells the story of the making of the Wallace and Gromit feature film - Wallace and Gromit, The Curse of the Were-rabbit. The story is told through a mix of text and graphics, models and sets from the feature and six short behind the scenes documentaries.

* What's the big idea
* Creating new worlds
* Setting the scene
* Bring drawings to life (making plasticene bunnies)
* Sounds like fun
* Bringing it all together

Pods - other animators explain their approach

Around the sides of the central units are six pods where the other animators explain their approach providing a rich variation to the exhibition.
Real sets

The main part of the exhibition is richly augmented by actual sets from the movie, depicting popular scenes and an opportunity to see the amazing detail that is put into each model and set. There are five main sets:

* Wallace and Gromit basement set with models
* Tottingham Hall entrance hallway set with models
* Mulche's garden set with models
* Vicarage set with models - this is also an interactive called 'adding atmosphere' and therefore contains small lights for visitors to change the lighting within the case, plus the necessary control buttons.
* Carousel Set - there are two additional sets with 3D viewers for visitors to look through, giving perspective and depth to some behind the scenes images

Interactives

Having seen how the professionals do it, the visitor is then provided with opportunities to try it for themselves through a range of interactives.
1. Colouring Characters (A)

The visitor can chose from four characters provided by D7 Studios. Using a touch screen on a 17 inch screen they can then use the paint tool box to colour each element of the character. This sophisticated interactive allows the visitors to mix colours by using RGB colour sliders to see the colour effects as used by professionals.
2. Colouring Characters (B)

This is a simpler version of the interactive above with wonderful outlines by Richard Vaucher to colour fill by touch the colour and paint box tools.
3. Adding Sound Effects

The visitor is shown a video clip from the movie 'The Curse of the Wererabbit'. It is a fabulous clip of Gromit in the kitchen and discovering some bunnies hiding in the bread bin. The challenge is to supply sound effects for the clip in real time, pushing buttons in sync with the action. If the visitor wishes, they can finish the activity by playing back the movie clip, first with the new sound track, then with the original.
4. Getting Animated

Many of us remember the character Morph who accompanied Tony Hart on the wonderful children's art programme. In this interactive Morph is lays down a black mat that turns into a hole, which he dives into and disappears. The visitor drags a series of images onto a time line attempting to put them in the correct order to make a smooth animated sequence. If they get it right they are rewarded with the animated clip and a round of applause . This is much harder than it looks!!
5. Adding Titles

This interactive allows you to add titles in an animated way, using letters, to title a film or credit the makers. It also gives the experience of using a rostrum camera and the different affect it creates from the horizontal camera interactive in Making a Mini Movie.
6. Making a Mini Movie

A camera is housed in a protective casing at one end of bench, a panel with 6 printed interchangeable backdrops on scratch proof laminate at the other end. The user has a number of small model characters, in a box to one side, which they can move around to make a short animation. A series of five push button controls on the camera casing lets them take a still image and then play back their finished clip.
7. Creating Characters

In the final section the visitor can stop try a very different skill. The visitor takes a sheet of paper and a pencil and takes a seat at a drawing board in the animation studio. On the projected screen, a professional animator from Aardman Animations shows the visitor how Wallace and Gromit are drawn through drawing simple shapes and gradually building up detail. The visitor follows the professional's instructions creating their own drawing to take away with them.

That sounds interesting TT.
If it wasn't for your reminders I would have missed this. I hardly ever watch the tv and never bother to look up what's on. So thanks for your trouble :o)
Hope Conker and Truffle are ok. - Oh Crocus too, and mustn't forget you aswell TT :o)

I put my fuchsias outside on Saturday TT, and now we're having frost. lol. I have them in those plastic propagator things so a bit of ground frost won't harm them, but they need light now. I think quite a few have died in that arctic winter we've just had.
Glad to hear the "C"s at least are behaving :o)

My 2 poor fuschia's have died this winter. I forgot to put any protection on them, d'oh! I won't bother replacing them, as I'm putting 2 pots with summer flowering jasmine's in their place instead. But if I'd joined this group earlier, maybe I would have been reminded to do it!
I've made a new notebook and have started to write down all the jobs I'm doing each month, so will have a record of what to do in future years!

I watched that programme last night. It was interesting, especially when he was talking about sleeping remedies.
I have insomnia often and I use lavender essential oil. It was interesting to see him putting lavender and hops together. Looking forward to next week's episode. Thanks for this information TT. I probably wouldn't have watched it otherwise.

I've come to this blog late, having been on holiday for the second half of February.
Vita Sackville (of Sissinghurst) came from a very priveledged background - she was the only child of the second Lord Sackville and grew up at Knole, the largest private house in the country. Because she was a girl, she couldn't inherit and the house passed to a cousin after her father died. Her husband, Harold Nicholson, designed the layout of Sissinghurst (she designed the planting) was also a member of the aristocracy. He mainly worked in Diplomatic jobs but was also an MP for a time. Theirs was a rather unconventional marriage as they spent a lot of time apart (due to his work) but wrote to each other on an almost daily basis. But it was also a marriage of convenience as they both had rather 'varied' sexual tastes (hope this hasn't offended anyone - I'm just trying to put their lives in context)

Another interesting episode tonight, especially liked to hear him talking about lavender. I use a lot of lavender essential oil in a burner and in the bath. It's good aswell to help sleep if you put a few drops on to a kitchen roll and place it in the bed a while before you go. Very interesting series. I'm looking forward to next week now.

No the tv guides never say when we'll get postponed progs. They just say what's on instead.
We may get it at 20 past 6 on a Tuesday, or 10 past 4 on a Saturday - just stupid times you can't keep up with. You can never tell. It wouldn't be any use complaining - they wouldn't take any notice.
We'll get it sometime I suppose but it's annoying.

Pleased I checked this again TT....off to watch Carol Klein now........she's my fave gardening presenter. Also are you enjoying the Grow your own Drugs prog...........I wish it was on for an hour, it's so interesting and he's so watchable...:o)

~I missed some of it~old Peter who doing what?
ye~ I thought the difference between bags of the same compost between different locations was a bit naughty~in other words you don't know what the heck you are buying!

I was interested by the filming they did at various places when asking about peat content of composts and the 'wriggling' the companies did when their staff gave the wrong information.
It was interesting that only Wyevales got it right - there are two near here and I wouldn't ask for advice at either of them because the staff are so ill-informed

I don't know the blokes name - he used to appear on Gardeners Question Time I think? He just wouldn't concede that the harvesting of peat from the bogs actually damaged the environment. Toby did a great job!

~there are a couple of guys at the local Wyevale who seem very clued up~however when the new calendars came in this year I stopped in my tracks as Three Cliffs Bay which is a stones throw from the house and something I view on a an almost daily basis had been printed to show the three cliffs on the right of the bay~ie everything completely reversed !~I told the assistant of this printing error and she was completely uninterested!

There's a repeat of a garden theme TV show this coming Good Friday 10th April 2009.
BBC 4. l0 pm - 11.30 pm.
How Britain Got the Gardening Bug.
Caroline Quentin narrates the changes and crazes in our gardens since the 1940s.

Sooooo pleased with this week's prog. Learnt how to grow begonia's from tubers properly. But they didn't say where to store tuber's over winter. Would the shed or my mini greenhouse (plastic one) be best? Or even the garage? Many thanks!

Its great to have gardeners World back....Theres loads of gardening programmes and repeats of old gardenrs worlds and aload of other things on the sky channel 248....I always switch over if theres nothing on to watch .....

Book Grow your Own Veg
To tie in with the BBC TV series, this is a lavishly illustrated, easy-to-follow, practical and inspiring beginner’s handbook to everything you need to know about growing vegetables, salads and herbs throughout the seasons.

I took my inspiration from BBC series 'Grow your Own Veg!' by Carol Klein

Carol Klein is fab. isn't she !
Let's hope there will be lots more of her shows on TV.

I would like more programmes where Carol walks around garden centres and garden shows, pointing out her favourite plants, and telling us further details about them. She is a real plantswoman and her knowledge is amazing !

I reckon the people who produce the garden shows for TV are READING GOY, so I suggest we mention anything we'd like to see shown in Gardeners' World and other garden programmes...

I'd like more programs where she's at her home Glebe Cottage in Devon busy in her garden and showing us round everywhere.
I used to enjoy the NGS series with her on the before and after gardens trying to be accepted by the NGS (wonder if she went and had a look at Spritz's....Lol)

He has been writing a series of articles called Grow Your Own for the Daily Mail Weekend TV magazine, of which the fourth part is published today, so fortunately it seems he is keeping busy and productive. :o)

~I have the book and the dvd of around the world in 80 gardens and his schedule of travelling and filming was so heavy and stressful that is why he became ill~such a shame! although he will be at the Gardeners World show at the NEC in June answering questions.

2 Movies that I enjoy, both running this week here in New Jersey, have a gardening theme. And just leave it to you Brits to be the makers of such movies!

Greenfingers, 2000, with Clive Owen and Helen Mirin, is about a group of prisoners in an experimental program which uses gardening as a rehabilitative tool. I've watched this a million times and really love it. It's a bit silly and fun to watch.

Amazing Grace, 2000, with Brenda Blethyn & Craig Ferguson, about a master gardener who's husband dies and leaves her penniless and she has to turn to selling marijuana to pay her bills. It's a bit slow moving but sweet and gives a good laugh. Plus, you can't go wrong with the theme!

Both of these movies have extensive gardening themes and are truly lovely little movies for a Sunday morning or a rainy day. Greenfingers is always running on Encore Drama in the States right now.

Thanks TT, I was wondering if there were any other movies with the Garden Theme? In the movie Suddenly Last Summer, with Katherine Hepburn & Elizabeth Taylor she sits in the Arboratoreum (I made that up, what is it called when it's not a green house, but a room filled with plants?) Anyway, she sits there telling the freakiest story about....well, it doesn't matter what it's about. It's the garden I seem to remember!
lol....
I'm glad the weather's good so you can get out a bit, but we have had so much rain that we're in a lot watching movies.

I'll check out The Chalk Garden, I love Hayley Mills and the rest.

Oh, have you caught our American TV Show called Weeds yet? It's a favorite of mine, though a bit racey so not for all tastes. I do find it quite hilarious tho dark around the edges..